The airlines may be charging an arm and a leg for airfare, but according to a report released by the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics on Tuesday, USA-based airlines did not have a single flight delayed more than three hours in the month of October.

The nation’s 18 biggest airlines reported no flights with delays longer than three hours in the tenth month of the year.

A year ago, 11 flights were delayed for more than three hours during the same time period.

The good behavior on the part of the airlines likely has a lot to do with a stringent new rule imposed by the DOT in April. The rule put heavy penalties on airlines that had tarmac waits of more than three hours, charging $27,500 per passenger for a flight over the time limit.

The rule was met with strong resistance from the airline industry, which threatened to cancel flights rather than risk fines.

However, a little more than half a year later, the cancellation rate has remained steady. In October, only 0.97 percent of all flights were canceled or around 5,275 out of 545,500 total national flights. In fact, the cancellation rate was down compared to last year, when 0.99 percent of flights were canceled in October.

Since the rule was implemented, only 12 flights have had tarmac delays of more than three hours, a big improvement over last year, when 546 flights where delayed during the same six months in 2009.

Not only have ground delays decreased, but also the on-time performance of the airlines improved in the month of October. Around 84 percent of all flights during the month arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival, up 77.3 percent when compared to 2009.

Many of these delays that did occur were weather-related, said the DOT.

The best performers of the bunch included Hawaiian Airlines, AirTran Airways and United Airlines. The worst on-time performer was JetBlue, which faces perennial delays at its JFK International hub.